Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials. Sinn Féin will support the Bill. However, in our view, the energy credits for which it makes provision do not go far enough. The fact remains that householders are still paying almost 60% more for their electricity and 90% more for their gas than they did in December 2020 prior to the eye-watering and intense increase in energy costs. We need to do much more for ordinary workers and families who are seriously struggling with the raging cost-of-living crisis. Unlike the Government, Sinn Féin proposed a short-term plan and a longer term one to address the outrageous burden placed on people due to the high cost of energy in Ireland. Over the short term, we proposed energy credits worth €450, going far beyond the Government's measures. After all and as already stated, energy prices remain 70% to 80% higher than they were in 2022.

Over the longer term, Sinn Féin is committed to broader reform of the energy market. For too long the Government has presided over an energy market that does not function for ordinary workers and families. It is content to preside over a system that prioritises profit over fairness and equity, meaning that Irish householders are always left with the short end of the stick. We pay some of the highest electricity prices in Europe, but before the market was liberalised, we paid some of the lowest. To make matters worse, energy prices have fallen much more slowly here than they have in other EU states. The fact remains that wholesale prices have fallen significantly. They are 70% lower than they were at their peak in 2022, yet in Ireland these reductions have yet to be passed on to customers. Householders are still paying 70% to 80% more.

The Government, the CRU and energy companies blame hedging for the sustained high prices. There is no oversight, however. For our part, Sinn Féin has longer term measures to make sure that energy companies are held to account on this and more. It is high time we stopped treating them with kid gloves. We will not object to this Bill today but we believe the credit should have been much higher. We are committed to addressing the inequity and the dysfunction at the heart of Ireland's energy market for good. That would lead to lower prices in the longer term.